The story of Genelec started 40 years ago. Ilpo Martikainen founded the company in 1978 in Helsinki. Before the full factory tour below, watch the teaser for a first glimpse of the plant.
The story behind the name
Maria Martikainen, Member of the board: “After some time he decided that Genius Electronics would be good. So Genelec is Genius Electronics. That’s the story behind the name.”
Professional audio monitoring has always been the core of the brand’s business. The mission of Genelec is to help their customers to fulfill their dreams by offering them the most truthful sound reproduction possible.
Studio monitors versus home speakers
Darren Rose, Senior R&D Specialist Electronics: “You’ve got your studio monitors which are for work and your home audio speakers which are for fun. When you work, you want a tool and when you are at home you wanna feel good. I would say that a studio monitor tries to reproduce the input signal exactly as it comes in; neutral, faithful and dependable. At home you perhaps you want a little more excitement, more envelopment. Perhaps you don’t want the neutral sound, you want it made bigger and better.”
How Smart Active Monitors calibrate to a room
Genelec’s Smart Active Monitors are designed to make the most of all modern acoustic environments. As studio space becomes limited and listening areas more confined, recordings are taking place in a wider variety of locations, many with minimal acoustic treatment. Learn more about the underlying technology in this explainer on Genelec’s SAM Technology.
Jussi Vaïsännen, Principal Engineer Acoustics: “You calibrate the system using a microphone and a test signal. You can do the calibration at one listening position or in multiple spots and average the results. As an end result, you get a flat frequency response that’s taking into account you room problems.”
The Genelec range and The Ones
The Genelec range consists of 3 categories: studio monitors, home speakers and installation speakers.
Darren Rose, Senior R&D Specialist Electronics: “The Genelec studio monitor range has several subsections. You’ve got your classic analog loudspeakers in different sizes and several ranges of SAM loudspeakers. SAM stands for smart active monitor. That’s a loudspeaker with DSP processing which can be networked and controlled in real time.”
The Ones are uncompromised 3-way point source monitors from Genelec that not only promote faster and more consistent production decision making, but also offer longer listening times than a traditional loudspeaker.
Jussi Vaïsännen, Principal Engineer Acoustics: “What’s so special about the Ones is that you have a point source loudspeaker. You have a coaxial tweeter/midrange radiating from a single source, single point in space. Also the woofers, like they are positioned, they act as a point source. So, we talk about acoustically concentric design, which it is.”
Built for quality and immersive audio
Genelec wants customers to experience that they provide the best quality in the industry.
Mikko Martikainen, Member of the board: “The technical quality of our products is first in class and especially if you look at the Ones, we can say that there are no comparable products in that size range.”
Today’s immersive 3D audio formats like Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X introduce higher demands from content creators. A unique opportunity rises for Genelec.
Jussi Vaïsännen, Principal Engineer Acoustics: “We can of course say that with the Ones, you’re able to get the maximum performance in the immersive audio system. However you setup your coaxial loudspeaker, you’re still getting the same performance. You won’t have any problems with the drivers blending in as optimally as you have with a multiple driver designs.”
Where Genelec is headed
At Genelec they believe that the brand will play a leading role in the AV industry in the coming years.
Mikko Martikainen, Member of the board: “We are not a mass market player. I don’t think that we will ever be. The AV market is huge, globally. Our place is in a way similar then that of the PRO market, where people appreciate the quality of sound and the long lasting products. Also the technical quality of the products. They are not made of plastic, but out of aluminum. That’s the place that Genelec will be, finding those applications and customers who value the same things that we value.”
Frequently asked questions
Where does the name Genelec actually come from?
It’s a contraction of Genius Electronics — the name Ilpo Martikainen settled on after founding the company in Helsinki in 1978.
What’s the fundamental difference in how Genelec designs a studio monitor versus a home speaker?
A studio monitor is treated as a tool: it aims to reproduce the input signal exactly as it comes in — neutral, faithful, dependable. A home speaker is designed differently, for enjoyment rather than accuracy — more excitement and envelopment, rather than a strictly neutral sound.
How does a Smart Active Monitor calibrate itself to the room it’s placed in?
Using a microphone and a test signal, either at a single listening position or averaged across multiple spots in the room. The result is a flat frequency response that already accounts for that specific room’s acoustic problems.
What sets the point-source design of The Ones apart from a regular multi-driver speaker?
The coaxial tweeter and midrange radiate from a single point in space, and the woofers are positioned so they act as a point source too — an acoustically concentric design, rather than sound coming from several separated driver positions on the cabinet.
Why is a coaxial point-source design like The Ones especially useful for immersive formats like Dolby Atmos?
Because the drivers radiate from a single point regardless of how the speaker is oriented in a multichannel setup, The Ones deliver consistent performance in any position — without the blending problems that can occur between multiple separated drivers in a conventional immersive-audio speaker layout.
